I've had a complete rethink about how to publish ebooks and organize this website. From now on I have decided to make all of the stories published by Little J Books (where the original copyright has expired*) available for free on the Little J Books website. Hopefully one day, fingers crossed, this website can become a place where people come to read all kinds of Japanese stories for free (not just ones translated by Little J Books) and to purchase the same books as a hard copy. I figure this is the best way to introduce new readers to Japanese literature.

* The copyright for the original (in Japan) expires approximately 50 years after the death of the author. Length of copyright varies from country to country.

Last week was a busy one. I've completely reorganized all of the titles from Kenji Miyazawa and Nankichi Niimi into a series: Tales From a Japanese Dreamland. Since I started translating these stories I've been wondering about the best way to present them in a way that people interested in them would be able to find them. Of course, people who already know the authors will just search by author name, but I really would like to introduce these guys to a new audience, so I feel the title of the series is really quite important. After trialling all sorts of different series titles, I decided to go with this one because it best conveys a sense of the fantasy world that these authors created, without restricting their audience to just children. I also thought about using fairytales or folk tales but the word fairytale tends to bring to mind Hansel & Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood, which are great stories, but mostly for children, while folk tales brings to mind stories like Robin Hood that have been handed down for generations, so it is not really suitable to these stories.

July 30, 2013 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nankichi Niimi. Niimi was born in Handa, in Aichi Prefecture, now about an hour's drive from Nagoya. He is very famous in the Aichi region so they are having all sorts of Nankichi Niimi festivals. One group even designed their rice field with different colors of rice so when it grew it turned into a portrait of Niimi!! How amazing is that? (That's the picture on the left. You can see a couple of foxes in there too.) Of course it took hundreds of people to actually plant it. That's real dedication for you.

The first story I ever read by Niimi was Buying Mittens. The way he describes nighttime in the snow-covered forest is very majestic and dreamlike. You really do feel like you can see what he's describing.Gon the Fox was the next story of Niimi's that I read, and by the time I finished reading it I was a major fan. Niimi is portraying complex human emotions, but he fits it all together so effortlessly that you are completely taken away by the drama. It really is a masterpiece and when you hear that he was only 17 or 18 when he wrote it, you'll probably think: What was I doing at that age?